“Seeing that it is better that offenders should die rather than that all of us should be killed by God’s just wrath against us for the folly of tolerating-wickedness in our midst, the People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.”

Yes, Mr. McLaughlin wants to legally shoot gay people in the head to protect non-gay people from the wrath of the all-powerful, benevolent deity that created all of them.

Verdict

As Mr. McLaughlin is not a member of government he does lie outside our jurisdiction, so no judgement will be made.

It’s encouraging that a good number of lawmakers denounced the measure including a (denied) request from the Attorney General to summarily ignore request. Regardless, the measure still requires an astronomically unlikely 365,880 signatures to become part of the 2016 ballot.

The bill, as we all know from “Schoolhouse Rocks”, still requires passage by the State Senate before becoming a law. With a solid Republican majority behind the effort, however, that seems likely. Looks like the cartoon will need to be updated to reflect the inevitable Supreme Court challenge.

The law would require a ceremony to be performed and certificate to be issued by a “preacher, minister, priest, rabbi, or ecclesiastical dignitary”. Russ claims this “protects” county clerks from having to “recognize” same-sex marriage.

Todd clearly doesn’t realize that non-religious people, according to recent polls, make up as much as a third of Americans. Marriage, secular or otherwise, provides numerous secular benefits ranging from tax breaks to estate disposition to hospital visitation.

Verdict

Russ and, apparently, a majority of the Oklahoma House of Representatives fail to understand that marriage as a legal arrangement has as long a, if not longer, history than marriage as a religious rite. They also clearly enjoy wasting taxpayer time and money with ridiculous assertions that have absolutely no chance of passing constitutional muster.

For all of this we charge the Oklahoma House of Representatives with Dickory in the First Degree and Accessory Dumbassery. They are sentenced to remain, for the rest of their natural-born lives, in an Oklahoma that will soon leave them behind culturally, socially and politically.

Inhofe seems to be suggesting that because it’s cold outside where he is, it can’t possibly be warm elsewhere. 2014 was, indeed, the hottestyeareverrecorded. Inhofe’s inane theatrics and inability to understand basic science can’t change that.

Verdict

It’s normally difficult to sentence somebody for being stupid, however it’s quite easy to do so for somebody this proud of being stupid. Inhofe is convicted with Dumbassery in the First Degree. For his sentence he will spend a week in drought-ridden California (currently experiencing the hottest winter on record) where he will presumably stand drooling and gibbering, amazed at the lack of snow in Winter.

It all started when 8-year-old Olivia McConnell suggested to her state representative, Robert Ridgeway, that the Mammoth become South Carolina’s state fossil. She raised the points that one of the first major fossil discoveries in North America was in South Carolina and that it was one of only seven states without one.

He thought it was good idea and, with his counterpart Sen. Kevin Johnson, introduced a nice, simple bill into their respective houses. It first hit a minor roadblock in the form of Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler who was objecting simply because, “Quite frankly, I thought we had passed a bill in the Senate putting a moratorium on official state whatevers.”

After a quick amendment from Peeler which, basically, said: “OK, but this is the last time for this crap, dammit!” the bill’s future seemed brighter. That is until it hit Sen. Kevin Bryant who is apparently so fragile in his belief that he insists that it infect everything (Bryant is pictured at left wasting somebody else’s time).

First, he derailed the bill by insisting that it include three verses from Genesis. This nearly doubled the size of this otherwise simple bill. After receiving criticism for that blatant attempt to politicize something that didn’t need to be politicized he relented by… doing more of the same.

The final version of the bill, which looks like it may be passed, includes this amended, redundant language by Bryant:

Section 1-1-712A. The Columbian Mammoth, which was created on the Sixth Day with the other beasts of the field, is designated as the official State Fossil of South Carolina and must be officially referred to as the ‘Columbian Mammoth’, which was created on the Sixth Day with the other beasts of the field.

There is no word from Olivia on how it feels to have genuine scientific curiosity squashed by a mean man in a dumb suit.

Verdict

For insisting that nothing good can happen unless his religion is allowed to mark it like a dog in heat, Mr. Byant is charged with Triple Dumbassery in the First Degree. We truly hope that someday he feels confident enough in his faith that he doesn’t have to shove it down the throats of little girls.

Proposed by state rep. John Kavanagh the law would force people to use gender-identified public facilities (restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, etc) consistently with the gender listed on their birth-certificates or face up to six-months in prison.

So, for example, a transgender woman, born male, wearing women’s clothing and in all ways outwardly presenting as a woman must, under this law, use the men’s room. It also appears that the (badly written) bill would potentially penalize any father that escorts his toddler daughter into a ladies room or a woman that leverages an otherwise unused men’s room.

(As an aside, we’re also consistently intrigued by the fact that somehow these ridiculous, bigoted proposals never seem to get any attention on the representatives personal home pages.)

Verdict

We had considered a plea-bargain for Rep. Kavanagh but, as reported in the Phoenix New Times, he is clearly a repeat offender. Therefore we charge him with Double-Maximum Dumbassery.

Jessica Ahlquist was 16 in 2011 when she questioned and then, with the help of the ACLU, brought legal action against her high school for prominently displaying an official Christian School Prayer. After nearly a year she (obviously) won her case.

Jessica earned few friends locally with her brave actions. She was repeatedly bullied by both other students and teachers, anonymously threatened with physical violence, rape and death and even earned the public ire of several famous conservatives. As vile as these were however our concern is with Peter Palumbo, her local state representative.

Peter decided to sum up his feelings about Jessica on a local talk radio station where he labeled her an “evil little thing“. This is detailed more fully in these Examiner.com and Cranston.patch.com pieces. This elected official singled out a child brave enough to suffer threat and insult to defend our constitution as “evil”. Soledad O’Brien interviews Jessica about this in this CNN clip from 2012:

On a positive note while Jessica lost many local friends she gained thousands of admirers around the world. So much so that Hemant Mehta, of FriendlyAtheist.com, was able to raise over $40,000 from the atheist/freethinker community to fund her future education.

Verdict

Palumbo, like many politicians, fails to understand the Constitution. By his statements he places personal beliefs above his civic duty. He is most sad however – desperately, terribly sad – for attacking a little girl that clearly could do his job better than he can.

A good man, if he disagreed with her, might have engaged Jessica on the issue. He might have admired her bravery and the sheer gumption she displayed at so young an age. He could have marveled that a child still too young to vote would have such a passion for the foundational ideals of our country.

Palumbo took another path: he called her names. Rep. Palumbo earns twin charges of platinum-level Dickory and Dumbassery – and our eternal disdain.

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Our Rating System

Offenders highlighted on SadPolitics can be charged with one or more of following in various degrees:

Dumbassery: Ideas or statements that are just patently stupid or so well debunked that no honest individual could possibly present them as factual. Dumbbasses are either liars or idiots (sometimes both).

Douchebaggery: Things that are technically true, but presented so far out of context as to be meaningless to the conversation at hand. Douchebags will often “lawyer” their way out of arguments.

Dickory: This is just, for lack of a better word, being an asshole. Dickory makes up for a lack of substance with volume and bullying.